


out of red and blue

by spacedhowell



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Childhood Friends, Coming of Age, Feelings Realization, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up, Growing Up Together, Love Letters, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Lance (Voltron), Pining, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Keith/Lance (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Slow Burn, mostly fluff though!, projection! so much projection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:27:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24178903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacedhowell/pseuds/spacedhowell
Summary: There, as he watches Pidge, Hunk and Keith sing Happy Birthday to him, purposely and unapologetically off key, Lance feels happier than he's been in a long time.He takes one look at Keith—hair tousled, eyes crinkled, a red flannel tied around his waist that really shouldn't look as good as it does—and comes to a heartstopping realisation.He thinks back to seventh grade, to sunwashed freckles and smiles and laughter. The box he's conveniently tucked away for the past three years bursts wide open. His heart flutters in a way that's all too familiar to him.He blows out the candles.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 229





	1. red

**Author's Note:**

> i've been working on this fic for many, many months now because i am the slowest writer in existence, but now it's finally out! 
> 
> hope you'll enjoy reading :)
> 
> title from "for him." by troye sivan because it is _the_ klance song

**_= 12 =_ **

The realisation first hits when Lance is twelve. 

He's sat in math class, filling the margins of his exercise book with messy doodles, only half listening to Ms Allen drone on about quadratic equations. He wipes away the eraser shavings that have collected on his desk, and, in the process, unintentionally whacks his mechanical pencil onto the ground. It lands with a thud loud enough to catch the attention of the students sat in front of him. 

He reaches down to retrieve it, but it's swept away before he has a chance to.

There's a boy. He sits at the desk in front of Lance, turned around to face him. 

The first thing he notices is the boy's freckles, stark brown against his skin, highlighted by the bright afternoon sunlight. Lance thinks they're beautiful, like paint splatters against a blank canvas. 

He apparently spends way too much time waxing poetic about the guy's freckles, though, because he's interrupted by—

"Yours?" the boy asks, one arm casually resting against the backrest of his chair, the other holding Lance's pencil out expectantly. 

"Oh—" Right, the pencil—

He takes it back, fingers brushing against the other boy's in the process. Lance tells himself it wasn't intentional. 

"Thanks," Lance says in the most nonchalant voice he can muster. 

The boy shoots him a polite smile before turning back to his tablemate, laughing at something she'd said.

Lance focuses his gaze to the front of the classroom and wills his heart to calm the fuck down.

_God, that smile._

Ms Allen's words go in one ear and out another. 

_And his laugh—_

He slams his exercise book shut with a little more force than necessary and stares blankly at the cover page.

 _Shit_ Lance thinks.

He likes a boy.

_**=** _

Lance thinks his favourite time of day is the bus ride home. 

School is noisy and chaotic—a direct result of hundreds of adolescents cramped into a building far too small to contain them.

The public bus is quiet, but not too quiet. It isn't suffocating, but it isn't isolating either.

On the ride home, he thinks about a lot of things, gets lost in his own bubble for a good thirty minutes before the buildings at the front of his street come into view and he has to scramble to press the stop button before the driver passes his stop.

Lately, he's been thinking a lot about boys _—a_ boy in particular. 

(Tyler. His name was Tyler, Lance would later come to learn, certainly not after eavesdropping on one of his classmates conversations.)

The moment replays over and over again in his mind, like a record on a broken player. The images—his smile, his laugh—spin around in his mind.

He probably looks like a madman, sitting all by himself on the upper deck of the bus, grinning to himself as his chest fills with this foreign feeling he can't seem to name. 

(He can name it, he just doesn't think he's ready to yet.)

The thoughts throw him off his axis. They take everything Lance has ever known about himself and cast them away. Every constant he's clung onto for the past twelve years, pushed too far to ever be pulled back into his orbit. 

Lance beats his own thoughts to the chase. He gathers them, forces them in a box that looks an awful lot like denial, and pushes it to the furthest corners of his mind.

He decides to leave the box for future Lance to handle. 

_**= 14 =** _

A year or two passes. He's fourteen now, in a high school far, far away from middle school.

He's made it through the first week of the year with his dignity relatively intact—aside from that stunt he pulled during freshmen orientation camp, but now's not the time to dwell on the memory of walking into the dorms with toilet paper stuck on the bottom of his shoe.

"All I'm saying is," Eren declares, "the peanut versions are way better."

"Why the hell would you ruin M&Ms like that?"

"Ruining them? If anything, I'm making them better!" 

"I mean—" Lance adds.

Cayden cuts in. "Are your taste buds okay?" He leans over in an exaggerated motion, pretending to inspect Eren's mouth. 

"Oh my god, get away from me you—" 

Lance zones out. A small part of him hopes that they notice.

"—do you even floss?" 

They don't. 

At this point, he's too drained to make an effort, so he picks up his tray and makes a beeline for the tray return. 

On average, humans take around a quarter of a second to react. Lance, however, does not possess the average reaction time.

Theres a shove at his arm and suddenly his lunch tray lay askew on the floor, leftover contents scattered all over the surrounding area. 

A pair of dark violet eyes latch onto Lance's. They dart to the mess on the ground before looking back up. 

Lance books it out of there before the other boy makes a single move.

He ends the week with his dignity, quite literally, spilled across the canteen floor. 

_**=** _

_What would happen if four teenagers, all practically strangers beforehand, were unceremoniously shoved into a room after being assigned a group project in which they had to recreate a scene from Shakespeare?_ is a question Lance has never thought to ask, but now has the answer to.

Thanks, Ms Jensen.

"Therefore then, thou gaudy gold, hard food for Midas, will none of thou," Keith recites, deadpan.

Lance pinches the bridge of his nose. "It's _thee_. Will none of _thee_ ," he says, the silence of the empty classroom adding a layer of reverberation to his voice. 

"Why," Keith sighs, agitation evident in his tone, "would they use thou in the first part of the sentence and then switch to thee?"

"Oh, for fucks sake." Pidge sinks down further into her seat. There's an audible thump as her head hits the chair's backrest. 

Lance steps backwards, out of the makeshift filming set they had spent days putting together, complete with old cardboard boxes haphazardly painted to look like caskets, aluminium wrapped desks to act as silver podiums, and, as a finishing touch, an off-white bedsheet draped over the notice board at the back of the room to serve as a backdrop. 

"Guys, could we _please_ get on with it," Hunk pleads. He lowers the school-issued camera from his face, words are laced with resignation rather than irritation. Filming was nearing the one hour mark, no thanks to their unnecessary bickering. 

Keith rolls his eyes but continues anyways. "Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge, 'tween man and man—"

"Can you at least _try_ to say the lines with emotion? Literally, an _ounce_ of emotion is all I'm asking for—" 

"But thou, thou meagre lead," Keith continues, raising his voice to a volume worthy of noise complaints from the teacher's lounge next door.

"Volume does not equate to emotion!" 

"Which rather threaten’st!" He shouts. Lance slaps his rolled up script onto Keith's mouth, effectively drowning out his recitation. 

"You're a pain in the ass to work with, you know that?"

Keith grabs the piece of paper and pushes it away from his face. 

"The feeling's mutual," he says, though his words are muffled as he uses his sweater sleeve to wipe his mouth in disgust. 

Thick silence blankets the room yet again. Lance remains in front of Keith, eyes stubbornly focused on a stain on the bedsheet behind Keith instead of Keith himself. 

Then, something in Lance—pushed by the past hour of frustration and annoyance—breaks. 

Biting his lip, he takes a step back and unfolds his creased script. 

A deep breath. "How all the other passions fleet to air," he starts, hesitantly casting his eyes back up to Keith. There's confusion and remnants of frustration. Lance falters for a second at that, but that _something_ in him is relentless, pushes him to carry on. 

"As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embraced despair." 

As his recitation goes on, Lance watches as Keith's doubt slowly melts away. 

When it comes his time to speak, Keith draws a sharp breath before continuing where Lance had left off. 

"What find I here?" Keith tries. 

It's soft and it's tentative but it's _effort_ and really, that's all Lance has been trying to get out of Keith this whole time.

"Fair Portia's counterfeit!" He puts down his script and tilts his head back up to face Lance. 

"What demigod," Keith takes a deep breath, "hath come so near creation? Move these eyes?" 

Lance swears Keith's eyes turn brighter as he continues with the rest of the page. 

Keith ends and there's a beat of silence. Then, "You did it!" Lance smiles—truly smiles. 

Keith returns it with one of his own, small and relieved, and genuine, if Lance looks closely enough. 

The moment ends when Pidge hops onto the table in front of her—with absolutely no regard for the way her filthy shoes dirty the surface—and yells, "And that's a wrap!" 

Raising both arms, Lance turns to the others, whooping in elation. 

He doesn't notice when Keith's eyes linger on him for longer than necessary.

_**=** _

A loud _thud_ startles Lance awake. 

He looks up just in time to see Keith wince at the sound, shooting an accusatory frown at his textbooks, as if they were responsible for banging themselves into the library's glass tabletop. Lance blinks, still slightly groggy from the nap he'd been taking.

"Uh, hey." Keith says tentatively, pulling out the nearest chair as quietly as possible.

"Hey," Lance says in response, "Didn't see you in class yesterday."

"Oh, yeah. Had the flu. Did I miss much?" 

"Well, under normal circumstances, the answer to that question would be _no_ ," Lance says, intentionally dragging out the last word. 

Keith quirks an eyebrow. "But?" 

" _But_ there was a surprise inspection from department heads, meaning she actually had to _teach_ this time instead of just putting on scene analysis videos and then swiping through Tinder the entire lesson." 

"Damn," Keith chuckles, "the one time I miss class."

A brief silence falls over them. Lance doesn't know if it's a comfortable silence or an awkward silence. Probably the latter. 

"But, uh," Lance starts, "if you need any help catching up, then," He trails off. 

This catches Keith's attention. He stops picking at a loose hangnail and stares at Lance for a moment. 

Lance panics. "Cause, y'know, I don't have much of a life outside school," What the fuck? "so, my calender's pretty clear most of the time."

Great, now he's moved onto using humour to deflect uncomfortable situations.

He's about to retract his previous words—Keith's silence is an obvious indication of what he thinks of Lance's offer—

His train of thought is cut off by a burst of laughter, rough and unexpected, as if Keith himself hadn't meant to laugh out loud. 

Keith calms down after a moment, and Lance thinks that's a shame, because he's never really gotten to hear Keith's laugh until now.

He smiles—the same earnest smile Lance remembers from last time—and accepts the offer.

They spend the next hour and a half going over the scenes Keith had missed, and at some point, Lance thinks maybe Keith isn't that insufferable after all.

_**=** _

"Are you kidding me?" Lance stares at the offending die as it lay on the hardwood floor of Keith's bedroom.

"Alright, so agility is a four, strength is one, and intelligence is two," Pidge notes, writing Lance's stats down onto a piece of scrap paper. Under her breath, just loud enough for him to hear, she adds, "Matches his real life stats too."

Taking umbrage at both the remark and the rolls, Lance protests, "No! I demand a re-roll!" 

"That's not how this works, Lance." 

Lance pouts dramatically and leans into Hunk, who graciously accepts the intrusion into his personal space with open arms. 

"Okay, are we ready to start now?" Hunk says casually, seemingly undistracted by Lance's koala-level clinging. 

"I call dibs on the green one!" Pidge declares, lunging for the green lion piece.

Hunk considers the pieces for a moment before picking for the yellow lion. 

Lance sets his eye on the red lion, but just as he reaches for the piece, it's snatched away. He whips his head up, mouth gaped open in indignation.

"Sorry," Keith says, though his tone suggests otherwise. "Red's my go-to piece." 

His eyes twinkle with amusement. Lance feels his competitive side flare up—a Pavlovian reaction that's been ingrained into him through years of living with four siblings. 

Lance shuts his mouth and huffs in annoyance. "Fine, I'll take Blue." He grabs the piece and slaps it onto the starting space. "She's better than Red anyways."

Cue the collective eye roll that Lance pointedly ignores.

"Okay, Hunk, you go—" 

"How many times have I told you to stop rummaging through my room—"

The door busts open to reveal tattered grey pajama shorts and dishevelled bedhead—hold on, why the hell does this twenty year old have white hair, what the fuck?

"—oh, hi there, Keith's friends." Bedhead scans the room before eventually setting his sights on Keith. "Who I was _not_ informed were coming today. At ten in the morning."

"Get _out_ , Shiro." Keith throws the unused black lion piece at him. 

"What, first, you invite your friends over without telling me. Now, you demand I get out of your room?" 

Ignoring the various boardgame pieces Keith continues to peg at him, Shiro wedges himself in the space between Hunk and Keith and examines the game board in the center. 

"Voltron? Really? That's so old." 

"Shut up." Keith says, swatting at Shiro's thigh. "You're old." he adds, as an afterthought.

"Wanna play?" Lance offers. He retrieves the black lion from the other side of the room, where it had landed after being unwillingly used as a weapon of assault. "We still have an unclaimed piece." 

Keith goes wide eyed. "No, no no no no no—"

Shiro's smile widens. "Sure."

"No!" 

"Why not?" Lance asks.

"Because—" Keith falters for a moment, struggling to think of a valid reason. Eventually, he settles on _because this is my room and I said no_. Lance doesn't find it all that convincing. 

"Do you have any idea how childish you sound right now?" 

"Maybe it's a side effect from spending too much time with you." 

"Excuse me? _You_ are obviously the one who—" 

At this moment, Pidge interrupts the arguement. "Keith, your turn."

"What?" He looks to the board, where the black lion sits on the 3rd space of the board. 

"Shiro's moved, your turn now." Hunk smiles innocently. 

Refusing to acknowlege Shiro's smug grin, Keith picks up the dice and hurls them onto the ground. They ricochet on impact, bouncing around and eventually landing under Keith's bed. 

This was going to be a long game.

**_=_ **

Lance does a double take when he spots Keith leaving the school library, heading towards the classroom block with his back turned and his earphones in. 

This is almost _too_ perfect.

He sends a silent _thank you_ to the higher powers above that have bestowed this opportunity upon him, before swiftly hoisting his backpack onto his shoulder and, as silently as possible, running to catch up with him.

A few accidental run-ins and mumbled apologies later, Lance finally gets to where he wants to be—right behind Keith. Keith, of course, is oblivious, probably too engrossed in whatever music he's taken a liking to as of late.

About a month ago, Lance and Keith, being the competitive dumbasses they are, made a bet to see who could jumpscare the other the most. How they came up with this bet, Lance has no clue. What he does know, however, is that he _will_ win it. 

Currently, Lance is leading with a score of nine while Keith lags behind with a meager six. Although it was never specified how many points one would have to accumulate in order to be considered the winner, Lance thinks that ten is a nice and round number to end on. And if Keith disagrees? Well, Lance already has a six page argument ready to go.

He psychs himself up, unable to contain the pure, unbridled excitement he feels with victory just within reach. 

"What're _you_ up to?" 

For fucks sake.

Lance whips his head around and is met face to face with none other than Pidge, smiling smugly at him as if she _knows_ what she'd just taken from lance. 

"Oh my god," a voice emanates from behind him, an indicator that his plans are truly, without a doubt, ruined. 

"Were you about to—" Keith's eyes flick from Lance to Pidge, and then back to Lance. 

The both of them have the audacity to break out into ungodly laughter.

As he stands stuck in the middle of his two asshole best friends laughing at his failed jumpscare attempt, Lance does _not_ pout, similar to the way a temper tantrum throwing four year old would. 

"Pidge, I—" Keith tries between chuckles.

"—am going to treat you to ice cream after school?" Pidge helpfully finishes. 

Keith smiles knowingly. "Mm, I'll think about it." Lance has a sneaking suspicion that there was a previously discussed deal. 

"Hey, bribery isn't allowed!" he claims, outraged.

"It was never mentioned in the rules, though."

"Wh— there were no rules!"

"Exactly." 

Lance mentally curses himself for proving Keith's point. A retort gathers on his tongue, but before he has the chance to call Keith a reprehensible cheater, the bell rings and Mr Robinson comes along to shoo them to their next class.

_**= 15 =** _

They're at a nearby mall, scattering in all directions, jumping onto every ride they can get their hands on in the children's rooftop playground. 

Hunk sways leisurely on a pink pony spring rider, right next to the monkey bars that Pidge has claimed as hers.

Over at the other side of the playground, the sound of swing set brackets grating against their metal beams is covered up by the sound of Lance and Keith's laughter, as they swing themselves higher and higher.

The terrorised looks the other kids shoot them don't seem to put them off whatsoever.

Having just finished three rounds of lazer tag—much to their wallets protest—they'd been understandably tired, but the four of them are nostalgics, and the sight of the playground had invigorated them with newfound energy. 

After tiring themselves out on various playground equipment, the four of them find a corner at the very back of the playground, far away from the eyes of parents looking on in disapproval. They empty their schoolbags and form a makeshift table with the textbooks, careful to make the stack as stable as possible. Hunk pulls out the cupcake he'd made the day before and cautiously places it on top of the pile. 

They break off the top of a number _7_ candle to make it look like a _1_ instead because _of course Keith had brought the wrong candles_ , before presenting Lance with his birthday cupcake, complete with the number _15_ proudly stuck on top. 

The late evening breeze makes lighting the candles especially difficult, the flame repeatedly blowing out before they even get the chance to start singing Happy Birthday. They eventually make it work, though, after a few failed attempts and singed fingers.

There, as he watches Pidge, Hunk and Keith sing Happy Birthday to him, purposely and unapologetically off key, Lance feels happier than he's been in a long time.

He takes one look at Keith—hair tousled, eyes crinkled, a red flannel tied around his waist that really shouldn't look as good as it does—and comes to a heartstopping realisation.

He thinks back to seventh grade, to sunwashed freckles and smiles and laughter. The box he's conveniently tucked away for the past three years bursts wide open. His heart flutters in a way that's all too familiar to him. 

He blows out the candles. 

_**=** _

"Can we _please_ listen to something else." 

"Why? It's a good song!"

"It's been on repeat for ten minutes now." 

"Yeah? and I spent ten years of my life convincing Shiro to let me use his Spotify Premium, so I'm going to, and I quote directly from one of Spotify's dumb adverts, _play what I want, when I want, okay?_ "

"God, I hate Luis." Lance scowls. "Can't believe this is what I'm reduced to after getting kicked out of his account." 

Keith looks unimpressed. "It was well deserved." 

"Geez." Lance pulls out his earbud, nearly pulling out Keith's along with it. "You change all the songs in someone's playlist to Never Gonna Give You Up _once_ , and _now you've taken it too far—_ " 

Keith grabs the bud and stuffs it back into Lance's ear. He accepts it with minimal squirming. Familliar chants of _wake me up_ begin to fill his ear once again.

"This is your punishment." 

"Listening to Bring Me Back To Life on repeat is punishment for rickrolling my godawful brother?"

Keith stares at him, eyebrows raised, as if to say _yes, you absolute idiot_ , and Lance scoffs in mock offense. His heart does _not_ skip a beat under the intensity of Keith's gaze.

Sharing earbuds with the guy you sort of have feelings for—yes, he's gotten past the denial stage—isn't the best idea, especially when you're pointedly trying to _get over_ your feelings for said guy, but hey, Keith was the one who offered first, and Lance has never been one to make wise decisions. 

"Forget it. I'll ask Veronica. I swear, if I have to listen to Amy Lee's stupidly perfect voice for one more minute, I'm gonna implode."

Though, as Keith leans more into his personal space to watch in amusement as he messages Veronica, Lance feels like he's about to implode for a _completely_ different reason. He hopes Keith doesn't notice the slight twitch in his fingers as he types. 

"Lance. Lance, I don't think bombarding her phone with mesaages is really going to help your case here." 

"Okay, well, I do what I want," he says, continuing to spell out the word 'please' by individually sending each letter in a separate text.

"Oh, look at that, she's left you on read. Congrats." 

"What?" his eyes dart to the bottom of his screen and there, low and behold, _read 3.17pm_.

Lance thumps his head against the back of his seat's headrest. An eerie opening piano tune starts playing for the fifth time in a row. 

_**=** _

Lance's first Secret Santa goes something like this. 

"Oh my god, you did not!" Pidge drops the half unwrapped gift onto the table. 

Hunk and Keith exchange confused glances, unsure of what emotion the comment is meant to convey. 

She rips off the red and white wrapping paper with all the fervour of a ten year old whacking open their birthday pinata. The happiness radiating off of her is palpable. 

"How'd you know?" she asks, admiring the artwork adorning the front of the game case. 

"Oh, I don't know," he says, sarcasm in his tone, "maybe because you always complain about how Overcooked levels aren't as fun once you've beaten them all, so I thought getting you the second version would shut you up." 

Before Lance can even react, he gets tackled in a bone-crushing hug, a soft _thank you_ mumbled into his worn hoodie. 

"Yeah, yeah. Don't get all sentimental on me now." Lance smiles despite himself.

Pidge pulls away. "Alright, who's next?" 

"Lance's turn to open his." Hunk nods towards him. The cozy Hufflepuff scarf that Pidge had gotten him remains wrapped around his neck. 

His gift, a rectangular package neatly wrapped in brown wrapping paper, sits on the table. He picks it up and takes a moment to admire the way his name, written in Keith's attempt at legible handwriting, decorates the front of the package.

"I, uh, apologise in advance," Keith says, as Lance examines the box further, trying to figure out the contents inside, "I'm not that good at picking out presents." 

_There could literally be an on-fire garbage can within this box and I would still love it because you were the one who gave it to me,_ he thinks.

A little taken aback by the realisation of how far gone he is for Keith, Lance occupies himself with tearing open the package so he doesn't have to deal with his own thoughts.

He anxiously reaches inside and pulls out:

A book.

Red and black, with an illustration of a matchbox—no, a book—no, a combination of the two. He stares at the words sprawled in bold text on the front cover— _Fahrenheit 451_ —not because he's trying to figure out what it is, but because he's still reeling in shock. 

"Oh." A million more responses lay on the tip of his tongue. He resists the urge to let them spill out.

After a few seconds, Keith asks, "Is it okay?" his voice is laced with uncertainty, and Lance wants to yell. 

Because _of course_ Keith had remembered all of Lance's late night ramblings, had remembered Lance, in his sleep deprived haze, talking about wanting to own a hardcover collection that would put Shiro's to shame. About how the first book he wanted in his collection would definitely have to be his favourite—Fahrenheit 451. 

He wants to yell, "Yes, you dumbass. Yes, yes, yes. It's _more_ than okay."

But a simple _thanks_ is all he manages to say without his voice cracking. He looks up, straight into Keith's eyes, and hopes that he understands what Lance is trying to say.

Judging by the way Keith meets his eyes, matches his gaze, and smiles, Lance thinks he does. 

_**=** _

Hospitals exist on an entirely different plane, detached from reality itself, Lance thinks, as he leans against the headboard of his hospital bed. He's been staring at the glaringly white curtains that separate him from the rest of the ward for so long now, he can feel a headache creeping up on him. 

For a while, he contemplates opening the curtains. A change in scenery would be nice, but his incessant need for privacy gets the better of him, so he stays in bed, begrudgingly staring at blank white space.

He glances at his broken left arm for what feels like the millionth time that day and sighs. 

In his defense, climbing over the backgate to get into the house didn't seem that bad of an idea at the time. It certainly seemed better than waiting another 3 hours for Veronica to reach home. 

So, confident in his ability to parkour over the two metre and a half fence, Lance took a leap of faith.

And now, here he was, sat in the hospital, recovering from both his broken arm and the earful Luis had given him an hour prior. 

So much for a leap of faith.

The room feels quiet. Not the good kind of quiet, the eerie kind, the one that encapsulates you and drowns out every distraction. 

Lance is used to noise, sounds of footsteps against ceramic tile, noisy fans, doors opening and closing—sometimes on bad days, slamming—shut, but here, the only thing keeping him grounded, anchored to reality, is the occassional sound of shuffling footsteps or medical carts being wheeled around. 

So he drifts, daydreams about whatever crosses his mind.

And by _whatever_ , he means Keith.

Recently, an overwhelming amount of his daydreams have been linked to Keith. Lance knows it's dangerous, but he can't bring himself to care. 

He daydreams about Keith. About falling asleep on his shoulder during their bus ride home, about making his eyes crinkle like they always do when his laughter is full bellied and uncontrollable, about telling him how he feels—

"Lance?" 

"Yeah!" he answers all too quickly to be considered normal.

The curtains are pulled away to reveal Keith, schoolbag slung over his shoulder, white plastic bag in hand. 

"You didn't tell me you were coming," Lance blurts.

"Normal people begin conversations with hello, but I'll assume that was the painkillers talking and not you." 

Keith sets his things down and sits on the folding chair next to Lance's bed. 

"Were you really dumb enough to try and parkour into your own house?"

"Shut up. I don't wanna talk about it."

"You talked about it lots in the messages you sent me." He reaches into the front pocket of his backpack and pulls out his phone.

"Let's _not_ revisit that." 

"Five fifteen, _hey Keith, guess who has two thumbs and is in the hospital with a fractured forearm because he tried to break into his own house?_ " Keith scrolls further downwards. "Then, you sent a photo of you doing a thumbs up with your broken arm." 

"I blame the painkillers entirely." 

"Even painkillers wouldn't be able to account for your level of dramatics." he replies.

Keith reaches into the plastic bag he'd brought in with him and produces two chocolate bars and a box of strawberry Pocky.

"I stopped by the 7-Eleven downstairs." he explains, tossing one of the chocolate bars towards him. Lance catches it with his good arm and doesn't even bother hiding his smile.

They chat for a while, their idle conversation eventually turning into a debate about sour Skittles, when the sound of the curtains shifting catches their attention. 

"Oh, hey there." Luis says, looking somewhat taken aback by the stranger that's taken residence by Lance's bedside. 

"That's Keith," he explains. 

Keith shoots Luis a polite smile and receives one in return. 

"Next time you get injured," Luis says, pulling the curtains shut with one hand and holding two containers worth of food in the other, "I'm not buying you takeout. You're gonna sit here and eat hospital food in misery." 

"Next time? There's gonna be a next time?"

"Knowing you?" Luis raises an eyebrow. _No doubt about it_ , it seems to say. 

Lance whacks his brother on the arm. 

"Mamá called me. She's on her way right now," Luis says, setting Lance's Happy Meal—he may be fifteen but like hell that's gonna stop him—onto the table. 

"What about Papá?"

Luis pauses for a moment. "Overtime." If Keith catches the hint of hesitation in his voice, he doesn't say anything.

"Oh," Lance says simply. The words don't sting like they used to before. Lance tells himself they don't. 

Keith is the first one to break the brief silence. "I should probably go now, it's getting late."

 _Stay_ , a small part of Lance thinks.

"Yeah," he agrees.

Keith waves Lance and Luis goodbye, but as he's about to step out, he pauses. 

"I call first dibs on signing your cast!" he declares over his shoulder.

**_._ **

The next day, the first words written on Lance's cast are _don't be such a dumbass next time_. After a long tangent about how his Mamá will _absolutely_ murder him for letting his friends write vulgarities on his cast, the words _get well soon_ are scribbled in bright red ink over the previous message.

_**= 16 =** _

At the very back of the school's multi-purpose hall, past the stained curtains and doors with worn away paint that reveal the beige frame underneath, up the dilapidated stairs that no one ever seems to use anymore, theres a small rooftop garden—or at least, there used to be. Now, the space only houses withered plants, their leaves brown and wilted from months of neglect.

Ms Dana—the only janitor who ever cared enough to water them—left in early June, and the harsh summer sun hadn't been kind to them over the past two months. 

Lance misses Ms Dana, misses the days where he would sit on the stepping stones of the garden, doing his homework while surrounded by lush greenery, waiting for her to come in with two watering cans—one in each hand—and a smile on her face. 

Now, he sits cross legged in the corner of the garden, back against the cool metal railing and face angled towards the clear night sky.

"We should be asleep." Keith points out.

"Yeah, but we're not. Perks of being in charge. I'd rather be here, anyways." Lance barely stops himself from adding the words _with you_ to the end of his sentence. He might be sleep deprived, but he hasn't lost all semblance of sanity yet. 

"God," Keith says, "who the hell took one look at me and thought, _wow you know what would be perfect for this broody sixteen year old with no school spirit at all? Being a counsellor for this years freshman orientation camp!_ "

Lance breaks out into laughter at Keith's deadpan delivery. 

When he calms down, Keith continues his tangent. "The new batch are insufferable." 

"For the most part, yeah. but there are some tolerable ones thrown into the mix."

"Nope, all the ones in my group are dickheads." 

"What about Raine? She seemed nice. I talked to her yesterday."

"Yeah, I thought so too," Keith says, "But then I heard her talking shit about Hadirah during dinner." 

"Ouch." Lance grimaces, but he doubts Keith can see it in the darkness. "It's the third day. They're already gossiping?" 

"I told you, they're insufferable. This whole camp is insufferable."

Lance gently takes the withered leaf of a nearby bird's-nest fern into his hand. He rubs his thumb over it's pale yellow surface, picturing what it would have looked like before, green and full of life.

There's a long stretch of silence. "You being here makes it less insufferable, though," Keith says, words quiet and spoken into the still midnight air that surrounds the both of them. 

The words take a while to click—he's gone the past nineteen hours without sleep, forgive him—but when they do, Lance feels a wound reopen, the same one from a year ago, when he'd blown out his birthday candles. The one he'd stitched shut countless of times before, only to have it open up yet again whenever Keith stuck his tongue out at him or shot him a particularly fond smile. 

He hates that all it takes for him to unravel is a simple _you being here makes it less insufferable_ , but he's known Keith for a while now, knows it's his way of saying _thank you for being here_.

"Thanks," he says, still picking at the leaf.

After a while, he turns to Keith and hopes the darkness of the night masks the bittersweet expression on his face.

"The feeling's mutual." Lance adds, afterwards.

The irony in his words is laughable. 


	2. blue

_dear keith,_

_you know, over the summer, i really,_ really _thought i'd gotten over you. but the moment i saw your dumb smile again in the halls, i was proven wrong._

_helping out at freshman orientation camp with you didn't help either. apparently, spending three days straight with the person you have feelings for is not a wise decision when you're trying to get over aforementioned feelings. the fact that you have adorable bed head may also be a contributing factor._

_sometimes i think back to the exact moment i realised i had feelings for you. thinking,_ what the fuck _, as i blew out the candles on my 15th birthday. because really, what the fuck?_

_it's like becoming aware of my feelings flipped some switch in my brain, one that made me constantly aware of you, of your presence. i hate that i notice the way you fiddle with the edge of your jacket when you're nervous or the way you mumble to yourself whenever you're trying to concentrate really hard on a math equation. i still think it's the stupidest decision my brain has ever made, realising my feelings. i should've just stayed in ignorant bliss._

_feelings are confusing. sometimes i think they might be mutual, but then im hit with the realisation that feelings can and probably will project themselves. so that's fun._

_i'm sorry my 1am thoughts are so all over the place. i'm 99% sure all of this sounds like an excerpt from some romance novel. i guess the one thing im trying to say is this—_

_i am so, completely gone for you, keith kogane._

_**.** _

The next day, he looks for the letter, fully ready to shred it and throw it into the trash—no, a firepit, but he can't recall where his sleep deprived self had stashed it. 

He prays to God he'd been sensible enough to get rid of it.

_**=** _

"What the fuck?" Keith does not look impressed. 

"Hi to you too." Lance waves to the screen and watches as a digital version of himself, the one tucked in the bottom right corner of his screen, replays his actions with just a split second delay. 

"Lance, what the fuck?"

"Has your vocabulary only been reduced to the words _what the fuck_?"

"Why are you up at," Keith glances at his phone, "two in the morning?"

"I could ask you the same thing." 

Lance watches as Keith fumbles for a response. 

"Watching unsolved again, weren't you?" 

"Shut up." he says, though even through the pixelated screen, Lance can see the edges of his mouth curling upwards. 

"Why'd you call, anyways?"

At this, Lance's face breaks into a grin. He grabs his laptop and sets it onto his lap with the screen facing Keith.

Keith squints, lifting his phone closer to his face to get a better look. It's unfair, Lance thinks, that Keith looks pretty even as the camera shifts to such an unfavourable angle. Keith's mouth is out of frame, but Lance can imagine it moving silently as he reads the words on screen. 

"Are you kidding me?" is not the response he'd wanted to hear, but it _is_ the response he'd been expecting. 

"What?" Lance moves his laptop screen closer to Keith, the title There _Are Five Different Love Languages — What's Yours?_ proudly on display. "Aren't you curious?"

"Not even a little."

"Well, I do. So shut up and answer." 

If Lance had been a little more awake, he might have caught the way Keith's eyes widened at the words _well, I do_. He might have caught those very same eyes shifting to look at him through the screen before quickly moving away again.

Six questions and a whole slew of complaints later—"What the fuck is a type A? Am I supposed to know what that is? Lance, Lance stop laughing!"—both of them come to learn what Keith's love language is, according to Buzzfeed.

"You like to create special one-on-one moments with them," Lance recites in his best announcer voice, "whether it's a weekend getaway or just staying in and watching a movie together."

Keith rolls his eyes, but Lance continues nonetheless, "Going long spans of time without seeing each other and seeing them be constantly distracted are huge no-no's for you!"

"It's official. This is the dumbest thing you've ever made me do." 

"Oh, so you're just going to forget that time I almost convinced you to pull the fire alarm right before our bio test?"

They both break out into laughter, thinking back to ninth grade. The idea was foolproof. Pull the first floor fire alarm in block C—far away from the teachers lounge and front office, relatively close to the canteen, where they would escape to afterwards. The school would have to evacuate, class would be cancelled, goodbye bio quiz. 

What they hadn't anticipated, though, was Ms Dana, on her way to lock up the janitors room, catching sight of two suspicious teenage boys sneaking around the classroom block during lunch. 

Though they hadn't been reported in the end, they did receive a very stern lecture from a very incensed Ms Dana.

Once they both calm down, Keith asks, "What's yours?" 

"What?"

Keith gestures vaguely. "Y'know, your love language thing."

"Oh, right," Lance replies, "mine's quality time, too." 

He feels a strange sort of satisfaction, telling Keith this. As if the word of this love language test was in any way reliable. Fuck, was he really gaining validation from this right now? 

"—a while back." 

Keith's voice snaps him out of his thoughts. 

"Come again?"

"Aliens. Yes or no." Keith says, his attention focused somewhere else off screen. The sound of Keith's fingers clacking away on his keyboard is so loud that it even carries through the poor sound quality of the videocall.

Lance stares blankly. "What?" 

The video shifts as Keith picks up his phone and turns it towards his computer monitor. It reads, in big bold letters, _Can You Successfully Escape Area 51 With An Alien?_

Keith reads out the subheading. "You think you've got what it takes?"

 _This is the stupidest thing,_ Lance thinks, barely resisting a smile.

"Bring it on." 

_**= 17 =** _

Keith examines Lance's hand, brushing his thumb over the chips on his nails and the dried skin at the tips of his fingers.

"What happened?" Keith asks. He drops Lance's hand and turns away to retrieve something from the front pocket of his backpack.

"Spent the past few days peeling off seven-year-old bluetack." Lance explains. 

With Keith's back turned towards him, Lance takes a moment to admire him. They're both sitting outside Ms Li's classroom, backs against the wall, waiting for AP Literature to begin. 

He quickly averts his eyes when Keith turns back, his previously empty hands now holding a small tube. He passes it to Lance, who examines the label as he accepts it.

"It's moisturiser." Keith saves him the trouble of having to read the tiny words on the packaging. "Stolen from Shiro's stash," he adds. Lance laughs and uncaps it. 

"Thanks."

"Why were you peeling off bluetack?" 

"We're moving out on Friday and I've gotta get everything off my walls before then."

"Your room's covered in posters. How're you gonna get them all off in time?" 

Lance shrugs. "Pure determination?" The reply earns a snort from Keith. 

Lance caps back the moisturiser and tosses it to Keith. He brings his open palms up to his face and the smell of peach fills his nose. It reminds him of Veronica's old conditioner—the one he used to steal and mix in with his own in hopes that it would make his hair smell as nice as hers did. 

"You can keep it," Keith says, passing the moisturiser back to Lance, "Seems like you'll need it more than me." 

Lance chuckles out a soft _thanks_.

"I won't tell Shiro," Lance promises, holding out his pinky finger expectantly.

Keith reaches out and links them together.

_**=** _

**_kool-aid kogane_ **

im dying 

send help

if i don't make it out alive pls tell my mama i love her 

_her room is like 10 feet away from yours go tell her yourself_

yeah going out of my room right now isnt really an option because of the millions of moving boxes that are currently blocking my way out

_you idiot_

shut uP i didnt think it through

need a knight in shining armour to come and save me ;)

_no_

keith pls 

im begging you 

_no_

i'll show u my baby pictures 

_didn't you lose all of them_

thats what i thought

but while i was packing

i came across an old barbie dvd case 

and guess what was inside it 

_are u kidding me_

_they were in a barbie dvd case this entire time_

11 year old me was a genius 

_i cannot believe you_

_send pics or it didnt happen_

noPE you aren't getting them that easily

come over and help me if you wanna see them for yourself 

_you're such an asshole_

_be there in 20_

_**=** _

Lance has had physical education with Keith since tenth grade. He knows what strength Keith is capable of, he has for years. 

So why, he asks himself, is he staring like a lovestuck seventeen year old as Keith lifts the boxes stacked at the entrance of his doorway with much, much more ease than Lance did when he put them there?

(He knows why.)

Now, they sit cross-legged in the middle of Lance's bedroom, surrounded by mountains of sundries that truly show the extent of Lance's hoarding problem.

Keith holds up a plastic Ditto figurine, about the size of his palm. "Tell me again why you should keep this?"

"You're meant to wind your earphones around it so they won't tangle."

"You use fake airpods, why do you need this." 

"When I inevitably lose them, this guy right here," he points at the toy in Keith's hands, "is gonna come in real handy." 

Keith sighs and reluctantly throws it into a nearly full cardboard box labelled _keep_. 

"This is pointless," Keith proclaims. He pushes himself off the floor and wanders over to the side of Lance's room that hasn't been overtaken by various knick knacks. He examines Lance's bookshelf, the one he had so meticulously ordered by colour, and Lance feels a twinge of pride. 

A series of knocks on the door catches their attention, followed by Veronica's voice chiding him for not clearing the box of diecast cars in the storage room left from his Hot Wheels phase. 

He uses the edge of his study table to hoist himself up. His legs nearly give in for a moment, a result of having sat cross legged on the floor for the past hour and a half. 

"Don't snoop through my stuff," he tells Keith as he maneuvers carefully around the mess that is his bedroom floor.

Once he's outside, he thinks he hears a faint yell, something along the lines of "No promises!".

_**=** _

Ten minutes later, with the help of Veronica and a battered wooden ladder, he finally gets the box of cars down and lugs it all the way back to the living room. He runs back up the stairs, ready to ask Keith for his opinion on what to do with his second grade memorabilia, but then Keith is suddenly outside the door of his room, body tense and eyes trained anywhere but on Lance. 

"Sorry, gotta go now." Keith's words come out quickly, all in one breath.

Before Lance can even get another word in, Keith is already moving past him and running downstairs. The door opens and shuts so softly Lance questions if he had even heard it at all, and then Keith is gone. 

Lance stands there for a moment, still processing the entire sitaution. The house suddenly becomes much quieter without Keith's presence. The sound of cabinets creaking open and boxes being sealed shut with masking tape aren't enough to fill the silence.

At a loss, he walks back into his room. 

Then he notices. 

There, on his usually immaculately organised bookshelf, a book sits out of place, stark red against the blue spines surrounding it. 

Fahrenheit 451.

He pulls out the book, and along with it, a folded piece of paper falls out.

_**.** _

It reads: _dear keith,_

_**=** _

Seventeen. 

That's how many calls he gets through, how many times he hits the green "start call" button next to Keith's name, only to be met with beeping and beeping and beeping and _the number you have dialed is not available, please—_.

 _Please_ , Lance echos, _please_.

What would Lance say even if Keith did pick up? What the hell do you say to someone who's just found out that you've had feelings for them for the past 2 years? I'm sorry? I'm sorry, you weren't supposed to find out like this. I'm sorry, please don't let this ruin everything. Sorry doesn't change things, but Lance sure as hell wishes it would. 

_**=** _

Lance is pretty damn good at staying out of people's sights when he wants to. 

It's a talent of his, cultivated by years of practice. As a child, when he and his siblings heard the sound of the front door opening late at night, they would all bolt into Veronica's room and sit against the door, silently waiting for the sound of the front door closing.

A soft _click_ and they knew it was okay to come out. 

A loud _bang_ and they'd stay in the room, waiting for the telltale sound of the shower turning on before quietly returning to their respective rooms for the rest of the night.

Staying out of sight and out of mind when his father was in a bad mood was a skill Lance and his siblings had perfected a long time ago. 

He never thought he would ever have to use it in school, but here he is, keeping his head down, taking the long way round to class so that he doesn't end up bumping into Keith in the hallways on his usual route.

His bag is filled with the textbooks for the day. He'd gone to his locker twenty minutes earlier than usual and stuffed everything he'd needed into his backpack so that he wouldn't need to return, all in an attempt to avoid Keith, his locker only a few rows away.

Lance already feels the backache creeping up on him, but decides it's a price he'll have to pay.

**_=_ **

"Can we talk?"

Keith's voice is steady. Lance can't think straight. 

He looks up from his phone slowly, tries to will his expression into something more neutral. Something that doesn't give away the fact that Lance had caught Keith walking into class out of the corner of his eye and immediately started praying to God to turn him invisible. 

"Now?"

"After class." 

He sucks in a sharp breath and hopes Keith doesnt notice.

"Sure," Lance answers tentatively. 

Keith doesn't say anything more, just shoots Lance one more indecipherable look before moving to his seat at the back of the class. 

An hour later, the bell rings and Lance is out the door before Keith even starts packing his bag. 

He tries, but he can't shake Keith off his mind. 

_**=** _

Spending his hour long lunch break in the front seat of Allura's Toyota in eighty degree heat isn't ideal, but again, it's better than being in the canteen with Pidge, Hunk and—the real reason he's not there—Keith.

Allura's car is hot and humid, even with the AC on full blast. Lance finds that the various knick-knacks organised neatly along the car's dashboard and the plastic Pokémon keychains that dangle from the rear view mirror make the space feel homey. He leans back onto the worn leather of the passenger seat. 

"You disgust me," Lance says, watching as Allura dips a handful of fries into her vanilla cone.

"Shut the fuck up," she retaliates, before shoving the ice cream covered fries into her mouth all at once.

She points an accusatory finger towards Lance's own cone. "You _bite_ your ice cream!"

Lance takes another bite in a bid to spite her. The cold stings his teeth but he resists the urge to wince and forces the lump of vanilla down his throat.

"Get out of my car," she says, though theres no heat behind the words, no bite.

"And face him in the canteen? No thanks."

Allura looks at him. She wears the same exasperated expression his mother so often does whenever she's about to chide him for doing something stupid like putting the dishes next to the sink instead of _in_ the sink.

"You'll have to, one of these days," she says.

"I know." 

He does. 

"I just need more time."

He doesn't.

He's just scared, scared of change, scared that once he talks to Keith, hears the words of rejection straight to his face, that it'll be real.

He could have all the time in world and he still wouldn't be able to look Keith in the eyes and know that he's lost him for good. 

He doesn't tell Allura any of this, just reaches over to her side of the dashboard and grabs a stray fry that had tumbled out of the carton.

"I know," he repeats, more for himself than for Allura. 

When Lance's lunch break comes to an end, he begrudgingly gets out of the passenger seat and waves goodbye to Allura before taking the stairway at the very back of block B to get to his next class.

_**=** _

Going to his locker early in an attempt to avoid confrontation lasts a whole two days before Lance gets sick of waking up early and reverts back to his usual morning routine. 

Still, he tries to be as stealthy as possible, slinking through groups of people and hoping that the morning crowd keeps him hidden.

He's almost to his locker when suddenly he's hauled into a nearby stairwell by the hood of his jacket.

There's a surge of panic, but only for a moment, because the next thing he knows, he's met with two familiar faces.

"Okay, what the fuck is up with you and Keith?" 

Damn, he was hoping he'd at least make it to Thursday before they noticed something was up. 

"Pidge, there are other ways to get my attention other than pulling me into a stairwell." 

"You weren't answering any of our texts!" Hunk says.

"And you didn't show for lunch yesterday," Pidge continues.

"There was—I had a last minute project to do."

He regrets the words as soon as they come out of his mouth, the lie so painfully obvious that it's not even worth defending further.

"Are you avoiding Keith?"

Lance's silence answers for him. 

"He came up to us yesterday, during lunch," Pidge explains, "asked us where you were and left after we told him that we didn't know." 

She sets her backpack against the railing and sits down on the steps.

Hunk joins her. Lance follows suit, settling down in the space between the both of them. 

It feels like forever before Lance manages to open his mouth. 

"He found out." 

Only three simple words and yet to Lance, they hold so much weight. 

Hiding his feelings isn't Lance's forte, and he knows Pidge and Hunk aren't daft. They've probably already pieced it together. 

Besides, you can only bring up so many "hypothetical situations" about having a crush on one of your best friends before people start connecting the dots. 

Hunk's response is careful. "Found out," Hunk hesitates, "about?" He knows, he just needs confirmation.

Lance decides to bite the bullet.

"That I have feelings for him."

And there it is.

The silence that follows is deafening, a vacuum that pulls the echoes of the words Lance had taken so goddamn long to admit. 

It's the first time he's actually said the words out loud. The first time he's laid out all the pieces for himself, for someone else.

In equal parts, there's relief—the euphoria of finally telling someone—and terror.

What the fuck comes next?

A shoulder bumps into his own. It stays there, firm and reassuring. Lance leans into it, rests his head against Hunk's arm, a mass that centres him, holds him steady and refuses to let him spiral. It's not long before Pidge joins, resting her head atop Lance's other shoulder. 

They stay like that for a while, ignoring the stares of straggler passerbys. 

"I don't want things to change." he says, just loud enough for the three of them to hear.

"Well, sometimes, what you want isn't necessarily what you get" Pidge says.

The corner of his lips curl upwards. "Wise words of wisdom coming from someone who's literally two feet tall." 

Pidge smacks his forearm, but it's half-hearted at best. 

The school bell rings and echos through the now empty stairway. Hunk is the first to stand up. He offers an arm out to Pidge and Lance each and pulls them up simultaneously.

"Everythings going to turn out fine," Hunk says, hand still clasped in Lance's.

If it had been anyone other than Hunk saying those words, Lance doesn't think he would have believed them, but the genuine honesty in Hunk's voice truly does get to him, soothes the ache in his chest—the one filled with unease and uncertainty—and leaves him feeling like he can breathe again. 

_**=** _

**kool-aid kogane**

_meet me by the swings 4pm_

_please_

_**=** _

On the rusted metal swings, the ones that retain just enough paint for passer-bys to tell that they were once coated with colour, the ones that still squeak with every miniscule movement, Keith sits with his legs crossed. His silhouette stands out against the backdrop that is the mid-day sky.

A thought comes to Lance—one thats crossed his mind dozens of times now.

The thought says that it's the most beautiful sight he's ever seen. 

He stays stock still, afraid that if he moves, this image, this mirage of Keith would disappear.

Lance idly wonders how long it'll last before Keith notices. His question is answered when Keith turns his face away from the open sky to shield himself from the cold wind, and catches a glimpse of Lance. 

Well, fuck. 

Lance looks into Keith's eyes and decides to bite the goddamn bullet. 

He throws his backpack onto the ground and takes the empty seat next to Keith. 

The silence claws up his throat.

"So—"

"You have feelings for me," Keith says.

The expression on Keith's face is something Lance so desperately wants to see, but he physically can't bring himself to turn towards him. 

"Is that a statement, or a question?" he chuckles. It's forced, and he knows Keith can tell. 

He tugs a flake of yellow paint off the edge of his seat and lets the piece flutter to the ground.

When he doesn't get an answer, Lance's anxiety gets the best of him.

"Yeah, I have—"

Keith looks at him then, and Lance knows himself. He knows his limits—knows they lie within the depths of Keith's unending stare. 

He looks down, continues chipping the paint. The metal reminds him of the colour of Keith's eyes. 

"I do." Lance says simply.

Keith's knee bumps into his thigh as he shifts to more comfortably face Lance.  
Lance's head whips up in shock and he's met with a stare as intense as the very sun that shines through the thick of clouds behind Keith.

Keith reaches into his pocket and pulls out a slip of paper. It's an aqua blue post it note, neatly folded in half. He holds it out in front of him, offering it out to Lance. 

Finally, Lance turns fully to face Keith. vulnerability creeps up on him, the space between them, the metaphorical safety blanket that had been shielding him before is gone, and now it's just the two of them. 

His fingers tremble as he receives the note—something that would've made him feel self conscious, if his mind wasn't already preoccupied with other thoughts at the moment.

The only thing going through his mind is a constant stream of _what the fuck_ , said with varying degrees of anxiety, manic energy, and most frighteningly of all, hope.

He unfolds the note.

_**.** _

_dear lance,_

_~~i think i~~ i feel the same_

_keith_

_**.** _

Lance looks up and knows he's reached his limit.

"Oh." he breathes. 

"Yeah." 

And he can't even laugh at how fucking cliche this whole ordeal is, can't even let his mind wander there because it's too preoccupied with the way that Keith is looking at him, looking at his mouth, the way Keith replaces his gaze with his own lips instead.

His hand scrambles to grab Keith's arm, the one that had snaked it's way to Lance's shoulder somewhere between the reeling shock of reading Keith's letter and the moment when Keith's mouth had pressed softly against his, hesitant and—

And now he's pulling back, the kiss only lasting for a second.

Though if you'd asked Lance, he'd say it felt like an eternity. 

A few seconds later, Lance can't help but ask, "Really?"

"Oh my god." Keith closes his eyes for a second, contemplating the decisions that had led him here. "I just fucking—" he opens them again. "We just—yes, you dumbass, yes." 

"Yes, what?" He's toying with him at this point.

"God save me." Keith looks up to the sky. Lance just smiles. 

He watches as Keith takes a deep breath.

"Yes, I like you. A lot." He swallows. "As more than a friend." 

Lance smiles wider. He knows he looks like an idiot and doesn't really mind all that much. 

He looks back down at the letter, still held tightly in his palm. "Both verbal and physical evidence, now you can't ever take it back." 

Keith's expression is a mixture of fond and exasperated. He whacks Lance on the arm. 

_**=** _

Two boys sit on creaky swings, pushing themselves off the ground with the soles of their shoes as they dare each other to go higher, as if their hearts weren't already soaring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!


End file.
